Editorial | Jabs hold key to more openings at Hong Kong schools
- Students will be returning to face-to-face classes next month as long as at least 90 per cent have been vaccinated twice against Covid-19
Repeated school closures have been one of the most controversial elements of Hong Kong’s tough anti-Covid strategy. Online learning is a relatively recent solution.
It is not clear how parents, teachers and students would have coped for so long without it. But in the long run it is no substitute for face-to-face learning and the social discipline and interaction of normal school life.
Hopefully, those days will soon be gone for good, following the government’s review of core elements of the strategy. School is back from April 19, but not without a two-dose vaccination requirement.
This is to strike a balance between normal life and caution so as to minimise the risk of the government feeling compelled to order even more closures to combat an outbreak. That said, every effort must be made, through persuasion of parents and timely access to vaccination centres, to maximise inoculation rates so that no child misses a day more of full face-to-face learning than is necessary.
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Covid-19: Hong Kong to open schools, lift flight ban, cut quarantine time and suspend mass testing
Education minister Kevin Yeung Yun-hung says kindergarten, primary and international schools must achieve a 90 per cent two-dose vaccination rate among students if they hope to resume full-day, in-person classes from April 19 at the earliest.